Several mechanisms are available on the market that provide means of monitoring vehicles. Unfortunately, most of them are designed to run one-time passive diagnosis and requires multiple steps to lookup error codes and associate them to a specific vehicle.
Other examples are On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) data recorders that are usually used by auto insurance company to track drivers' activities. However, such system focuses on drivers' behavior instead of their vehicles. This limits the system's usefulness for creating a complete dataset suitable for developing, a useful and objective vehicle diagnostic and notification service. Another shortcoming with this system is that the data collected is not related to the vehicle's status or health. The system is also very intrusive to drivers' privacy and the target market is for consumers who want to save money on their insurance policy.
Some other systems provide real-time data collection or diagnosis, but their main purpose focuses on drivers' behaviors as well and most of them require the application and smartphone's GPS to run all the time, which impacts the smartphone's battery life. Also, alerts for these systems are displayed on an application screen which are not immediately visible when drivers are using other applications like GPS guidance system or when the drivers' phones are in their pockets while driving.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,367,368 to Giraud et al. discloses a System and Method for Mobile Application using Vehicle Telematic Data which “transmits an indication of vehicle state for delivery to a mobile computing device over at least a wireless datalink component of a communication network.” However, Giraud's invention differs from the present disclosure in that the modular device used by the present disclosure has much simpler architecture than the Telecommunication Control Units (TCU) described in this patent. The present disclosure uses the mobile phone as a central network platform (transfer data to/receive data from vehicle and the cloud). Further, Giraud's TCU uses Machine to Machine (M2M) cellular data exchange with a SIM card and no data is passing through the smartphone to interact with the Service Platform. The modular device used in the present disclosure also does not embed any sensor (Like GPS) and utilizes sensors from the smartphone instead, which greatly reduce the manufacturing cost for the disclosed modular device. The present disclosure includes a Low power cut-off system instead of relying on a battery to avoid vehicle's battery drain. The present disclosure also includes a more advanced and detailed notification service, and is based on regular scans triggered by a service platform at regular intervals and orchestrated by the smartphone. The present disclosure optionally provides easy password-less accounts and registration.
U.S. Pat. No 2017/0004661 to Winiecki discloses an Automotive Predictive Failure System which “is able to performs real-time calculations to detect any automotive performance variations and also to calculate a part-performance efficiency for each of the vehicular components that is communicably coupled with one of vehicular sensor.” However, Winiecki invention differs from the present disclosure in that the process used in the present disclosure compares timestamped performance data for a given vehicle, with similar data but from multiple vehicle having common parts (Model, Manufacturer, supplies) and additional data sources providing predictable knowledge of existing vehicle failures matching specific metrics or conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,342,935 to Lundsgaard et al. discloses a Smartphone Based System For Vehicle Monitoring Security which “aggregate[s] and compare[s] a vehicle's performance relative, for example, to other similar vehicles, to other vehicles in a particular or similar geographic location, to vehicles in similar weather conditions, or the like, while maintaining individual privacy and security.” However, Lundsgaard' s invention differs from the present disclosure in that the system described in the present disclosure offers more flexibility and combination of use, allowing drivers to connect with multiple devices and monitor multiple vehicles. The present disclosure also includes some logic to recognize vehicles that does not return values to VIN queries.
The existing technology developments have the inherent shortcomings of not offering automatic vehicle detection and limiting the product scope to dedicated drivers and their main vehicles. These developments do not offer any low power detection mechanism to avoid battery drain if the vehicle is not in use for a long time and/or have a weak battery. Further, none of the current developments offers a voice notification system to let the drivers focus on the road. The conventional technology also does not generate any Vehicle Health Report, which may be required to pre-qualify for the mandatory smog check or vehicle inspections is some states and countries.
Accordingly, there exists a need for improved methods and systems for collecting and evaluating vehicle status.